Netflix fans react to Prince Andrew actor cast in new film about infamous interview
Every so often there's a media storm that everyone is left talking about. And it's one that Prince Andrew knows all too well.
Whether it's the Frost/Nixon Watergate interviews from the 1970s or more recently, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's sit down with Oprah, these are cultural moments that everyone remembers - and it was no different for King Charles' brother some five years ago.
We can't believe it's been that long already either.
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It's a moment that is now set to get Netflix's The Crown treatment, with a dramatisation of the events before it - as well as the car crash aftermath - coming to the streaming platform in the form of biographical drama film, Scoop.
Gillian Anderson (The X Files, The Crown, Sex Education) stars as BBC journalist Emily Maitlis, who famously secured the Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew, Duke of York in November 2019.
It follows the behind-the-scenes story that negotiated the interview, which was later described as 'a plane crashing into an oil tanker, causing a tsunami, triggering a nuclear explosion'.
The interview focused around Prince Andrew's relationship with American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who he had known from 1999 until Epstein's death by suicide while in custody, three months before the BBC interview.
Through court documents one of Epstein's sex trafficking victims, Virginia Giuffre had accused Epstein of forcing her to have sex with Prince Andrew.
In the interview with Maitlis, Prince Andrew denied having intercourse with Giuffre.
He said he had been at Pizza Express at the time of the alleged crime.
Prince Andrew also denied claims from Giuffre that she danced with him at London's private members' club, Tramp.
She said he had become very sweaty; something Prince Andrew said couldn't have been the case due to his alleged inability to sweat as a result of an 'adrenaline overdose' during the Falklands War.
In 2022, Andrew settled out of court with Giuffre for £12 million after she brought a lawsuit against him in American courts. Around £2 million of the settlement was privately funded by Andrew's mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
Netflix has today (5 February) released images from Scoop, which will be released some time in 2024.
And fans can't quite believe who the man tasked with playing Prince Andrew is.
Rufus Sewell is the man in the hot seat.
A veteran of the silver screen, TV and the West End, Sewell is more known for roles such as Petruchio in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.
He also starred opposite Heath Ledger in A Knight's Tale and played the villainous Count Armand in The Legend of Zorro.
More recently he starred in Netflix's Kaleidoscope, a unique eight-part series that showcased the episodes in a random order.
— Netflix UK & Ireland (@NetflixUK) February 5, 2024
On playing the controversial prince, one fan couldn't accept it. They tweeted: "Absolutely refuse to engage with the casting of Rufus Sewell as Prince Andrew. No, absolutely not. Let me instead think of him in that heavenly Taming of the Shrew, eyeliner, fur coat, raised eyebrow."
A second said: "I wouldn't have thought of Rufus Sewell but - blimey - he looks just right. Could be his creepiest role since Michael Winner's Dirty Weekend."
A third wrote: "My brain is utterly melting over the casting here."
Another posted: "Okay quite aside from this being incredibly weird, making Rufus Sewell look like that should be illegal."
Topics: Netflix, Royal Family, TV and Film, UK News, Politics, BBC, King Charles III
Tom Earnshaw